It all started when I went to a little film called “ Brokeback Mountain.” Perhaps you’ve heard of it? No?

Well, it’s this adorable little romantic drama with cowboys and mountains and rough sex in the woods that’s based on a short story written by E. Annie Prolux in 1997. Oh yeah…the cowboys: they’re gay.

My boyfriend and I joined two other friends and went into the theatre where we were forced to sit down front because there were so many people there. We watched as the cowboys in question fell first in lust and then in love spending the next two decades cheating on their wives while living double lives. They periodically snuck away on the pretext of fishing in order to spend time in the mountains where they presumably boinked each other senseless then went back to their everyday existences.

The story ended with one of the cowboys dying a tragic, but seemingly normal death. Normal, that is, until the film briefly flashed on the character in question having his skull beat in by a tire iron. What had up to now been a story about love had transformed suddenly into a story about hatred.

I left processing this inconsistency. The more I tried to ignore it the more it screamed at me from the periphery of my mind. In an attempt at purging my thoughts of the voices playing smear-the-queer in my cranium, I sat down at my keyboard and hacked out a strongly worded opinion piece. Let’s just say I was none too kind.

I already knew what I had to say was not going to be popular. I‘d already had several discussions with close friends which further solidified my resolve. I also have this confounded sickness I inherited from my mother that will not allow me to keep silent about anything that provokes me no matter who it may offend. I was prepared for dissent but I still stood by my opinion. What I wasn’t prepared for was the maelstrom that followed.

It started benign. First I got an e-mail saying I was an idiot. They lambasted me for misassigning a quote to the wrong character—a crime to which I shamefully admit.

In my frenzied typing I wrote Ennis where I meant Jack and thus sealed my fate.

Comments from friends and colleagues—even those who strongly disagreed—were still tame. Then, the real cacophony started. The e-mails grew increasingly more rabid until they stopped being anything more than pure hatred. I was called things that would make the butchest cowboy flinch in anger and I’m no cowboy. One lovely person went on to draw conclusions about my parentage and suggest that my mother only had me for the welfare money.

I know what you’re thinking: “Sticks and stones”. But as I stated earlier: hatred is the subject of this diatribe. Hatred has this viral quality of infecting a person without them realizing it happened. As my every thought was turned into kibble, my solemn resolve slowly gave way to resentment. That resentment eroded into anger. My anger soured and turned into bile before I knew any better. The more I engaged the more they made me feel hate. They were winning and it showed. My bitterness grew and I started to feel like what I was accused of being. Only when I disengaged was I able to get free.

All of this over a movie based on a short story…or rather my opinion of same.

It is interesting to me that in this age where more and more of our liberties and freedoms are being slowly eroded away, where gay people are good enough to entertain the masses but not good enough to raise children of our own, where our neighborhoods are no longer safe places for us to live because of hatred or random violence, where we have more important things that should be occupying our minds as a community and as a part of the greater nation that one lowly writer’s opinion could bring out the worst in us. It amused me to read one person curse me a new hole and then tell me that I was making gay men look bad. Mr. Pot, I’d like you to meet Mr. Kettle and by the way…you’re both black (now somebody’s gonna make something of that line too…sigh).

Just today an 18-year old man near Boston walked into a gay bar and wounded two gay men with a hatchet. Where was the seed of his hatred born? Did he see the tire iron for a split second and know exactly what he had to do to prove he wasn’t like those queers on the screen?

I’m not saying that “ Brokeback Mountain” made someone try to kill two people. However, it is interesting to note that “ Wyoming Stories,” the E. Annie Prolux book that was the context of the original short story “Brokeback Mountain” was in fact printed in Wyoming almost exactly a year to the day gay college student Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and left for dead in that same state. A coincidence to be sure, but the point is what could have easily been a story about hope and love while still being true to life was purposefully presented by straight people who do not even know what it is like to be persecuted because of one’s sexual orientation as what amounted to nothing more than a lesson in hatred.

The possibility of happiness and true love is dangled in front of us as bait so in the end we can be slapped with the sickening possibility it all ended with a tire-iron in the head. And what do we do? We sit around and make this exercise in hatred some sort of gay “Passion of the Christ” phenomenon where we make like Pat Robertson. We worship this movie striking down any who dare say anything bad about it. Meanwhile our friends, families, and co-workers are being shot and killed in their own neighborhoods or chopped up with hatchets by deranged teenagers dressed all in black. We are losing ground but we continue to accept tolerance over acceptance and can’t even tell the difference between the two.

One thing is for sure, hatred is hatred no matter whose pants it spends the night in and if the GLBTQ community as a whole doesn’t start learning to agree to disagree more and stop beating the crap out of each other then there may not be much of a community left. We won’t have to worry about straight people portraying us badly. We’ll have done it all by ourselves and have no one else to blame but the reflection in the shattered mirror that is our lives.

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Music that’s out of This World

The Atomic Swindlers—Coming Out Electric Self-Released Rating: A+

Welcome to the 23rd Century. Strap yourself in. We’re in for a fun ride. Leggy front woman April Laragy and her co-conspirators in The Atomic Swindlers have brought you here through time and space to share with you sultry star-spanning stories of sex charged divas that run from the law and save the day in the end. The world that the Atomic Swindlers inhabit with their craft is a starry spot in the sky where the saucy sci-fi seduction of Raquel Welch mingles with the neon colored psychedelic siren call of Pink Floyd, post-India Beatles, or Ziggy Stardust era David Bowie with Debbie Harry playing hostess. This potent brew is then topped with a heavy glam surface al a T-Rex or Iggy Pop and dressed in the clothes of Barbarella.

All of that said; don’t make the mistake that this is just some sort of retro pop rip-off band. While the inspiration for The Atomic Swindlers may be well rooted in classic retro glam and post-punk sensibilities but that is where the similarities end. The Swindlers’ greatest talent is the ability to lure you in with the trappings of a future world in a bygone era and then hurl the unsuspecting listener headlong into an intelligently written and skillfully performed music sounds cape with clear influences from modern sounds like PJ Harvey, Tori Amos and No Doubt.

Sporting songs about intergalactic lesbian love affairs, space bandits in love, and time warp fueled sexcapades The Atomic Swindlers "Coming Out Electric" is unique fare for anyone who is a fan of well-written solidly performed tunes that have a hip, imaginative feel. Anything less is just a thing of the past.

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Sultry Songstress Tells “The Way It Is”

Keyshia Cole—The Way It Is A&M Records Rating: B

If you haven’t yet seen sexy chanteuse Keyshia Cole slink her way across MTV2 then you don’t know what you’re missing. Not only is Miss Cole truly a vision to behold she is also an incredibly talented vocalist who, with a little more experience could rival such heavyweights as Mary J. Blige or Erykah Badu. Cole’s saucy R&B vocals are amazingly versatile belting out powerfully biting vocal onslaughts as easily as she does soulful pleas soft, hot and alluring as a spring night in New Orleans.

If all that weren’t enough proof that the girl’s got the real goods, look at the writing credits and note that ten of the twelve tracks that populate the album are co-written by Cole herself–a feat that even one Ms. Aguilara couldn’t achieve on her first major label outing.

Add to all that the amazing array of talent that lined up around the block to be able to say "I knew her when…’ including Daron, Chink Santana, Judakiss, Eve, and one Mr. West…and I don’t mean Adam!

The only logical conclusion to all this is there‘s no doubt that Keyshia Cole is one to be watched. It will be interesting to learn what she’s capable of once she gets a few under her belt and really knows what she’s doing. Remember where you read it: Keyshia Cole is going to make some noise. Until that time comes we can settle for getting our groove on to "The Way It Is".